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Speaker 1: Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Becker's Healthcare Podcast. I'm Mackenzie Bean, associate vice president and managing editor of Becker's Hospital Review. Today, I am so thrilled to be joined by Doctor. Eje Akumili, who is a chief medical officer of Jersey City Medical Center, a facility of RWJBarnabas Health, and a clinical associate professor of emergency medicine at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School. Doctor Ekonili, thank you so much for being here today.

How are you doing?

Speaker 2: Thank you for having me, Mackenzie. Excellent to be here. As you said, my name is EJ Ekonili. I am an emergency physician. I am also an obesity medicine chief medical officer at Jersey City Medical Center, which is a facility of RWJBarnabas Health, and also a clinical associate professor of emergency medicine at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School.

I have, for the past several years, focused my career in clinical transformations and complex environments, such as Jersey City Medical Center, but really across The United States, bringing physicians, nurses, operations together to to improve quality, safety, and the patient experience. Jersey City Medical Center is a full spectrum medical care center in Hudson County. It's about a 340 bed, very modern hospital, literally overlooking the Statue Of Liberty in the New York Harbor. It is a not for profit hospital. It is a level two trauma center with about 17,000 admissions and 100,000 emergency departments visits annually.

We are a regional referral center for orthopedics, but also for advanced cardiac care. We're also teaching hospital with multiple residencies and fellowships, notably in obstetrics and gynecology, internal medicine, orthopedics, and most recently, fellowships in rheumatology, gastroenterology. We're very proud of our multiple, designations, most recently best maternity hospital by US News And World Report, but also a magnet designation for the fourth time. Little historical perspective. Jersey City Medical Center has been in existence since about 1882 and has really been, an anchor community of Jersey City, which is one of the most diverse communities in The United States.

We've provided the full spectrum of care, everything from women's health to advanced cardiac care, really for life saving procedures. We also have an award winning emergency medical service that, brings patients to us. We're very proud at the core of our mission is to build trust in our community. I personally believe that, especially in underserved communities, that healthcare systems build reliable systems of care. We invite people from the margins to join in, and in the end our North stars to extend healthy years of life.

Speaker 1: Yeah. That trust is just such a crucial building block for high quality health care. I'm curious. I'm talking to you in, late January. As you look back on 2025, what would you say is the most important initiative that you led?

And can you tell us about some of the results that you've seen so far?

Speaker 2: Absolutely. 2025, was, as for many people in health care, very interesting year. One of the most important initiative we led, I would think one of the most important initiatives anyone can lead in health care, was really working on our mortality and hospital acquired infections. We are now sort of top quartile, in terms of mortality among hospitals, our rank in the in in the country. We have our lowest rates of hospital acquired infections, and we did this by building a mortality and safety council.

We've really strengthened our early deterioration pathways and diseases like sepsis, we have standard escalations, we have real time data and transparency. So those are some of the things we've done and like I said topped us out. The second thing we've done in 2025 was really honing in on a women's health strategy. Reducing our number of c sections for first time moms, working with our nursing colleagues on healthy breastfeeding, access to a community, just general women's health initiative. And as I mentioned, and as we're very proud, one of the results was being designated a best in class maternity hospital by US News and World Report.

But something else that we ask people, somebody who is committed to training the next generation of physicians, is that we've had a historic expansion in our graduate medical education. As I mentioned, we have many residencies here at Jersey City Medical Center. We have seen an unprecedented growth in those residences that we already have, like internal medicine, but also creating new, programs in rheumatology and gastroenterology. This is very important to us because we are now creating not just a new generation of doctors, but doctors that will statistically stay locally and take care of this population that needs the help and care in those sort of specialties. So we're really proud of all those things at Women's Health where we have an incredible new chair, Doctor.

Todd Rosen, who continues to push the envelope not just in the care delivery but in the research, making us, something we're proud of, a research institution in our mortality and our hospital acquired infections and like I mentioned that historic expansion in our graduate medical education. And we continue to welcome medical students to this historic campus to take care of this community.

Speaker 1: That's so impressive. Some really significant gains in both mortality, HAIs, as you said, a lot of work in women's health, and then, of course, expanding and bolstering your your physician pipeline. How are you planning to build on this work, or what other big priorities are on your mind as you're entering 2026 and, thinking about a lot of the headwinds that we're seeing across the industry right now?

Speaker 2: Sure. And even before I talk about 2026, one more foundational groundbreaking work we've done is really pushing the frontiers on innovation. So lots of talk out there about innovation in healthcare, but we, with a partnership with Scitec City, have really seen innovation as pivotal to access and equity. For example, launching BioBeat, which is a cuffless blood pressure monitor, which gives patients the ability to monitor their blood pressure at home, in the comfort of their own home, without much intervention, and this can now be sent to their cardiologist. If you think about cardiac disease and high blood pressure as prevalent in this community and a lot of it unrecognized, we finally started pushing the frontier of what current technology can help us do to take care of not just the patients in the hospital, but the care continuum of patients.

So looking forward to 2026, our goal is to continue hardwiring reliability into care. Continue, as I mentioned, push innovation like we talked about, really, expanding things like BioViz, but really expanding that partnership. So picking up, for big priorities for 2026, the expansion of our surgical services will be key. In 2025, we launched our, the DaVinci robot series, which was groundbreaking for us. And we have expanded surgical volumes, but we will be, adding two new operating rooms again to provide access to a community.

So that is important for us that we increase surgical access, increase surgical volumes, use the technology that we started in 2025, get into, continue to improve surgical care. But also we'll continue to hone in on our very, very strong operating principles, working on our efficiencies and our length of stay. Those things that not just affect the bottom line, but the patient's experience of care. Experience of care in our hospitals is something that is quintessential to who we are, so we'll continue to push the envelope not just in that, but on the very fundamentals of the work we're doing. So it is surgical expansion, building of our two new ORs, and really focusing on making the fundamentals such as length of stay, patient experience, the trust and well-being that I come back to so often.

All this, all this keeping equity as an access, not as good to haves, but as strong operating principles for us.

Speaker 1: Absolutely. I appreciate you laying out those priorities. And I know, you know, so many systems nationwide are really looking at access as as well as capacity as they're seeing increasing demands on the health care system. Are you able to elaborate or share any more details on, specifically what that looks like in practice for your hospital hospital in terms of, thinking through throughput and capacity, while, like you said, maintaining that trust in patient experience?

Speaker 2: Sure. We've had some changes in our marketplace with, an unprecedented increase in patient falling And having been around to take care of this community for over a hundred years, we will continue to do that. So as you mentioned, it is important that with this influx of patients, we continue to maintain the same level of care, the same quality, the same unprecedented increase, decrease in us in our infection rate. So the way to do it is to work on our efficiency. Two things.

And, you know, efficiency is not just the bottom line as somebody who's spent their life thinking about throughput. Reducing the length of stay in the emergency room, for example, that makes it possible for people to come and be seen and go back home. We have a very robust, operating, system that goes across cross really cross disciplinary from our emergency room staff to our lab services to, really all the ancillary services that service our emergency room. On the inpatients, we have really an incredible interdisciplinary round system where every day we look at barriers to discharging patients from the hospital. But those barriers are complex, some of them are housing, some of them are just making sure that patients have safe discharge plans.

But getting patients to their next site of care efficiently, compassionately, and so they can continue their lives. Because remember the goal of healthcare is to give people longer healthier lives and part of that is moving the continuum of of care along. So that's something that we're working on with very, very rigorous data transparency and, management.

Speaker 1: For seeking that greater efficiency, that makes a lot of sense. You know, a lot of what you're outlining is such important work. It's it's so rewarding, but it's also no easy task. I'm curious, what do you think is the hardest thing that you're gonna have to tackle over the next twelve months?

Speaker 2: So I think in the next twelve months, we're going to continue to lead through uncertainty and changes in the marketplace. So as I've probably alluded to, RWJBarnabas is the latest provider of health care to the, to the most vulnerable population in the state, twice more than in our nearest competitor. And while other health systems may sort of diverse from our populations, Jersey City Medical Center has expanded. We have but as you know, the very problems that plague, you know, The United States, the Auburn populations, are our patients' problems. And we know this factually and data driven because we have our community needs assessment.

So whether it is the rise in chronic medical conditions, in obesity, the mental health dual epidemic that really started around COVID, the rise in homelessness, the inflationary pressures our families are feeling. All those things are part of the healthcare ecosystem because in the end, we want to make sure our patients are taken care of, not just in the in the hospital, but in the community. We've done many things, and we will continue to double down on our investment in our food pharmacy, for example, where we give food as prescription. Our community health workers have an incredible reach where they, connect with patients where they are and connect them to community resources. Our social workers are adept in really working with patients for a wide variety of circumstances.

So it is both a thing of pride for us, but it is a challenge that we'll continue to walk through because in the end we're taking care of people and these are true concerns that continue to, be part of our world.

Speaker 1: Well, doctor Akunili, as you've been talking, I think it's just so clear how much passion and care you have for the work you're doing in the community you serve. So I just wanna thank you so much for your time and sharing some of your thoughts on on leadership, with our listeners today. It's been such a pleasure speaking with you.

Speaker 2: Thank you very much. Thank you for having me.